


Haven in a Heartless World

by twobirdsonesong



Series: Haven 'verse [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Childbirth, Derek and Stiles are Mates, Derek gets a family, Established Relationship, Feels, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mpreg, Pack Feels, Parent Derek and Stiles, Post Mpreg, Rebuilt Hale House, Scenting, Wolf Puppies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 09:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobirdsonesong/pseuds/twobirdsonesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek and Stiles finally have the family they've been dreaming of, but there's a complication that threatens everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haven in a Heartless World

Derek sits back on his haunches and takes a deep, shuddering breath.  His fingers close and open restlessly on his thighs.  Blood stains his hands and he tries to scrape it off on the rough denim of his jeans.  It’s been months of worrying and waiting, rubbing his hands reverently across Stiles’ ever swelling belly and listening to the hearts beating inside, trying to pick the rhythms apart.  He’d stuck close to Stiles’ side the long days of his pregnancy, ever since they found out just what Stiles’ spark was truly capable of.  Derek knows he’d been overly protective, baring his teeth at strangers who strayed too close, keeping his hands all over Stiles whenever he could.  He couldn’t fight his instincts.

 

But now, now Derek is afraid to touch.

 

Stiles lies in an exhausted heap on the floor, cradled by a mess of soft pillows and blankets.  He’s resting on his side, curled protectively around a little pile of fur and paws and twitching noses.  Derek gapes helplessly at the sight.  Those are his, his pups – his and Stiles’ – brought to bear by blood and ash and magic.  He can’t believe it, had barely thought it possible, and he can hardly breathe for the reality of it, even though it’s right in front of him. There’s an enchanted knife etched with runes on the floor that reeks of drying blood and ozone and Derek wants to destroy it – salt, burn, and bury it – but he has more important things to worry about it.

 

Derek pulls his eyes away from the necessary weapon and lands on Stiles.

 

He’s a little pale, a little faded around the edges, but happiness and contentment are radiating from him.  Derek can smell it seeping from every pore, warm like cedar and all spice.  Stiles’ long-held squeamishness is gone in the face of the certainty of his new family.  Derek couldn’t be more proud of him, the way he suffered through the opening of his body for the birth of their pups; conscious through it and knowing his own blood was running down his skin.  Stiles offers him a small smile as though he knows what Derek is thinking and his hand drifts down to rest on the wriggling body of one of their pups.

 

 _Our pups_ , Derek thinks, still dazed, and it hits him again.  Hard.  This is the moment he never thought possible.  This is their family. 

 

They’re blind and defenseless, wet and squirming in a pile of stubby limbs and tiny ears.  Derek has the overwhelming urge to lick them clean, his wolf pushing to the surface at the sight of the newborns.  Bone deep and ancient instinct wars with human practicality.  He’s not going to shift just so he can run a broader tongue over their bodies, but he wonders if his mother did, when he was born.  Instead he reaches for the towels they’d set aside earlier to rub them dry and clean. 

 

“Gimme one,” Stiles mutters, grinning and trying to push himself into a sitting position so he can help, but Derek just presses him back down to the pillows with a firm, gentle hand.

 

“Rest, my little Fenrir,” he says, and he brushes his knuckles down Stiles’ cheek.  His skin is tacky with dried sweat.  “You’ve already done the hard work.”  Derek leans over him, pressing a warm, lingering kiss to Stiles’ mouth and rubbing his nose against his jaw.

 

Stiles’ body is still putting itself back to together.  Skin and muscle and sinew knitting closed, organs shifting back into their rightful positions with the help of Deaton’s spells and Stiles’ spark.  The room is a confusion of smells, thick with healing and new life – copper and fennel and sage.  The wet forest scent of the salve from Deaton that Derek spread across the wound tickles his nose.

 

He sits back and reaches for one of their pups, a boy with dark fur.  Derek is so careful with him, wrapping the squirming body up in a towel before bringing him to his lap.  The boy is solid and real in his hands, snuffling against his palms to scent him, and low sound rumbles from deep in Derek’s chest.  A fierce and abiding love rises wild inside of him.

 

 _Mine_ , he thinks.  _Ours_ , his wolf howls.

 

Derek bends his head low to the small body and listens carefully.  He knows that heart beat.  This was the one that spent so much of the last months on the left side of Stiles’ belly, kicking him every night around dinner.  Derek grins and lets himself rub his face into the soft stomach, scenting his pup, marking him as _his_ the way the scent of Stiles is already engrained all the way down to his bones.  When Stiles was carrying the pups, neither he nor Derek had any idea if their children would be born werewolves or human or a mix of both.  There was no way to tell and too much unknown in the process itself to even begin to worry about it.  And Derek didn’t care either way.  But they’re all wolves, their children, and he can’t wait to see their human faces after the first full moon wanes.

 

Derek hums softly as he wipes the pups clean, a rumbling melody he barely remembers from his mother.  Their skin feels delicate and their fur soft under his fingers, the fragile curves of their ears, but the muscles and bones beneath are strong and solid.  He can feel the happiness continuing to pour off of Stiles, wrapping around him and filling the corners of their home.  There’s warmed milk waiting just to the side and Derek is anxious for their children to take their first drinks.  Derek sighs.  This is what his life is supposed to be.

 

He barely has time to register the sudden, complete shift in Stiles’ scent, his heartbeat, before he hears his name.

 

“Derek…”

 

His whole body flinches at the panic and distress thick in Stiles’ voice.  He looks up.  Fear is etched into Stiles’ pale features as he gazes down at the last of their pups.  A tiny girl – the smallest of them all – and Derek’s own heart stops when he realizes she’s not moving.  He’s not sure he can even hear her breaths.

 

“Derek,” Stiles says again, low and terrified and his long fingers spasm towards her.  But he doesn’t touch her.   “Derek, she’s – is she…”

 

Derek makes sure the other three are safely with Stiles before he reaches for her.   Her body is cooler than the others, too light and so still.  Derek can hear himself whimpering in distress, high in his throat.  His wolf claws underneath his skin, desperate to shove its nose in the newborn’s belly and sniff for life, to breath air into her lungs.  He paws helplessly at her, rubbing his fingers along her spine and down her little limbs, trying to massage warmth into her, to encourage her blood to move, her heart to pick up from its fragile flutterings.

 

“Deaton, do we need – should I get him?”  Stiles asks.  He’s pushed himself upright and gathered the other pups to his lap, hands roaming endlessly over them, learning them by touch and leaving his scent all over them.  Comforting himself with their presence, but Derek can feel the heaviness of his fear.

 

“I…” Derek shakes his head.  He doesn’t know what to do, what to think.  His wolf wants to keep the pups safe from all strangers, even though Deaton is no more a stranger than Scott or Lydia.  “I don’t-”

 

“Take off your shirt.”

 

Derek just grunts.  He wants to rub the pup’s feet, but he’s afraid to hurt her.  She’s so impossibly small.

 

“For her,” Stiles says.  “Your skin.  Your heat.  She needs it.  Derek.”  Stiles is holding the other pups close against his stomach, petting their fur, but his eyes – huge and wet – are on the little one in Derek’s huge hands.

 

Derek shifts his girl into one hand and strips off his shirt, and that too smells of Stiles’ blood.  He cradles her to his naked chest and almost jumps at the cold press of her nose against his bare skin.  He can feel the pounding of his heart – fast and terrified – and wants the heavy, endless sound of it to jumpstart the rhythm of their daughter’s.

 

He’s never been so afraid.  He’s lost too much family already; he’s not losing her too. 

 

“Please, he whimpers into her fur.  “ _Fight_.”

 

Deaton had warned them, over and over, of the danger and uncertainties.  Magic is fickle, it takes as much as it gives, and they’d asked to be given so much with these little lives.  But Derek can’t pay this price.  He can’t.

 

Suddenly there’s a hand on the back of his neck and another resting on top of his where it’s cupped around the pup’s body.  Magic prickles in the air.

 

“Stiles,” Derek breathes. “Don’t, you’re too…” He would never call his mate weak, not ever.  Especially not after witnessing what he just put his body through, but he’s clearly not a full strength.  The long cut across his belly is barely healed and Derek can smell the exhaustion hanging around him.  “You shouldn’t…”

 

“Shhh.”  Stiles’ forehead rests gently against Derek’s temple and the electricity rises.

 

Derek’s never known how Stiles’ magic works, not really.  The power of wolves is in the moon; it’s different for Stiles.  It’s in his blood and skin and hair now, Derek can smell it on him always, the sharp ozone of it, as much a part of him now as his own blood.  Derek’s hand begins to grow warm under Stiles’ and he knows the heat is traveling through him and into their pup because he can feel her body warming against his chest.  Hope makes his heart clench.

 

The world hangs suspended.  The burning wire scent of magic gathers around like an electrical storm and he shivers.  But it’s Stiles.  _His_ Stiles with his impeccable control and Derek gave his absolute trust over to his mate long ago.

 

The scent of their pup changes first.  Cold wet linen replaced with salt and cinnamon.  The rhythm of her heart, one too slow and so faint, rises to match that of her brothers and sister.  Stiles lets out of a long, huffing breath, not quite a laugh, and Derek wants to sob brokenly in relief.

 

He pulls Stiles in close, mindful of the pack of pups between them, and buries his nose behind Stiles’ ear, whuffing softly.  Stiles makes a wordless noise in response, something he’s picked up from running with wolves for so long.  It’s a sound of agreement, of understanding, of certainty.

 

Derek clutches their daughter to his chest as he shuffles as close to Stiles as he can get.  He lies down on his side facing his mate, knees and foreheads touching, leaving just enough space between their bodies for the pups to curl up in pile of bodies.  He can sense them growing hungry, but he needs this moment of peace to gather himself.  Derek strokes Stiles’ skin and pups’ fur and breathes.

 

He knows they agreed to follow the old customs of not naming their children until after the first full moon of their lives, when they shift to human for the first time, in case they didn’t survive.  But his wolf is whining to make an exception for this little girl.  She’s more than earned it.

 

“Stiles,” he says, voice rough.

 

“Laura.”

 

Derek pulls back just enough to look up.  Stiles’ eyes are calm and dark on his, utterly content.  “What?”

 

“Her name is Laura,” Stiles says, lips twitching in a smile.

 

“But we said,”

 

“I know, but…” Stiles ducks down to press a kiss to her head.  “She’s already a survivor.”

  
Derek’s heart surges.  He hadn’t always knows that it would be Stiles, infuriating, aggravating, Stiles who was too young and too full of life to be stuck with someone like Derek, but when he’d found out – when he’d realized it _could_ be Stiles – he’d known it would be forever.  He wasn’t wrong.

 

“Stiles.” Derek brushes his lips across the line of Stiles’ cheekbone.  “You remain the best part of me.”

 

“Aww, look at you.  Babies have already made you a giant pile of goo,” Stiles teases.

 

“Shut up,” Derek growls playfully, nipping at Stiles’ lower lip before drawing him into a soft kiss.  It’s love and comfort and relief.  It’s everything. They only break apart because the pups wriggling between them start making high pitches noises that Derek instinctively recognizes as hunger.

 

“And the cock-blocking begins already,” Stiles sighs.  Derek laughs and kisses Stiles’ smiling mouth again before reaching for the milk that’s still waiting.

 

He’d wanted their pups to be born in the forest, the way so many generations before him had been, but Stiles had put his foot down on that one.  And since _he’d_ been the one huge with their children, Derek wasn’t going to argue the point.  Now, curled up on the floor of their rebuilt home with their children, surrounded by the familiar sounds and scents of their life together, Derek knows this is exactly the haven he’s been searching for all along.

**Author's Note:**

> I took bits and pieces from canon and combined them with other lore and my own ideas to come up with how I thought Stiles' pregnancy might go and how the pups would develop.
> 
> Derek and Stiles' pups are born as wolf pups and will keep that form until after their first full moon, when they shift to a human body. This is when they'll officially be given human names, because they've survived.


End file.
